


Whiskey, I love you

by Porgsforbreakfast



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Basically a thin and shameless premise for some smut, Ben instantly falls in love with Rey when she yells at him, But she doesn't mind, F/M, Liquor is better shared, My extremely specific kink is Ben Solo handling his shit, Rey and Ben each just want some peace and quiet, Rey fears no germ, matchmaking puppetmaster Leia is too slow on the draw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-18 21:36:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29615784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Porgsforbreakfast/pseuds/Porgsforbreakfast
Summary: Ben Solo is having a bad life and it's all his fault, but sharing one drink with a sympathetic neighbor who somehow manages to forgive him for being a human garbage fire has him wanting to turn it all around.One shot.
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 21
Kudos: 103





	Whiskey, I love you

The first time he sees her, _the girl,_ Ben is not having a good day. He’s been going through a lot lately, trying to extricate himself from the stressful, immoral, life-consuming job he hates without crawling back to his family’s company, which by _complete coincidence_ happens to be his employer’s main adversary. His boss, Snoke, is known for blackballing anyone who tries to leave First Order, so he will probably have to throw himself on his mother’s mercy and take whatever Resistance Corp will condescend to throw him. And _that_ will mean putting up with his uncle Luke’s patented Skywalker histrionics, the mere thought of which make his mood even blacker. He doesn’t have much in his life beyond his job, anymore. Most of his hobbies have fallen by the wayside in his years at First Order; all he really has time for is the gym, and even that is located at the office. Even all his “friends” are First Order, though he knew that calling them friends is a funny way to say “people you hang around with so it will be easier to see it coming when they stab you in the back.” Sometimes he might pick up a woman in a bar, but that was rare and never more than a mutually satisfying fuck. Considering all this, it might be more accurate to say that Ben is not just having a bad day, he’s having a bad life.

But back to the girl. It’s a Saturday night; he’d worked until at least 9:00 and then had drinks with Hux, that pickle-faced psychopath who always looks like he had just that instant realized he’d stepped in shit, and Phasma, whose icy mask of indifference conceals the most ruthless corporate warrior he’d ever encountered. He’s a little drunk, and hating himself -and his job, and the company he keeps, and the world, and everything else- all the more for it. It has to be at least midnight, and his mood is so bad that if he stays in his apartment any longer than it takes to drop off his briefcase and jacket he’ll be taking it out on the whiskey bottle. So he turns to the only other thing that passes for a hobby in his snake-infested ruin of a life: he goes up to the roof of his building to look at the stars.

This is not the romantic, introspective kind of stargazing. The sum total of the rooftop’s ambiance is created by a splintery old park bench and a coffee can for people to throw cigarette butts into. But it is a place he can see the sky, and if the air isn’t too bad, sometimes the planet Venus or some of the brighter stars, and that’s better than nothing. Of course it isn’t anywhere near as good as when he used to go camping up north, but he has to be back in the office in about 7 hours, so the roof will have to do. He rushes up the stairs, loosening his tie and banging through the door with perhaps a little more force than necessary, but that old rusty fucker always sticks and therefore has it coming. 

He and his fury burst violently onto the roof, heading for the bench, but there she is. This _girl,_ younger than him but not that much, pretty, lying on the bench with her knees drawn up and headphones in, staring at the sky. She must hear him over her music, or whatever she was listening to, because after a moment she turns her head to look at him. He’s so stunned he can’t even react, just clench and unclench his fists while his chest heaves. He almost certainly looks like a guy who’s about to shoot up a bank. The girl’s eyes narrow at him as he just stands there, but before either one one of them can speak, he whirls on his heel and thunders back down the stairs. The whiskey bottle it is, then.

The second time Ben sees this girl, it’s a Tuesday, a few weeks after their inauspicious first meeting. He had wrapped up an important project that day, and even though he received some rare praise from Snoke that wasn’t wrapped in a subtle insult, he’s no less angry than on any other given night. It’s not that he is indifferent to success, but his client, Empire Oil, is so amoral that it offends even his diligently suppressed scruples. So again, he heads for the roof to keep himself away from the liquor. He needs to do something to get the feel of the Empire Oil’s president’s cold, dead-fish hand off of his skin. The man, Sheev Palpatine, seems to take a grasping, fawning kind of interest in Ben, always trying to lure him away from First Order with over-effusive praise and dangled job offers. Ben is sure that the only thing worse for him than working for First Order would be working for Empire. It certainly hadn’t done his grandfather any good, back in the day.

Tonight, his rage is no cooler but perhaps a little further from the surface. Instead of charging up the stairs, he plods broodingly. He heaves the sticky door open with his shoulder, but with no more force than necessary. But the rage rushes right back up again when he sees her, again on the bench with her headphones, arms tucked up into her hoodie sleeves while she stares at the sky. Again, she turns her face to look at him, but this time she scrambles up to sit, crossing her arms obstinately in front of her. Through his clenched teeth, he hisses “you again!” before retreating just as hastily. This time, he hears her shout “wanker!” right before the stairwell door slams shut. She has an accent. He’s probably in love.

Having realized he’s in love, Ben starts to look around for the girl. He leaves around sunrise and gets home late at night seven days a week, so he’s not surprised he doesn’t see her, but he looks. He figures, in that weird way that people think about strangers, that this girl who he’s in love with lives on the roof, like some sort of inverse bridge troll who’s gorgeous and yells at him to get a grip on his life rather than killing him and eating him. That’s weird, but he’s not thinking very clearly. The next Saturday night, when he drags his sorry carcass home from the office around 10 PM, he changes into sweatpants and a T-shirt before grabbing the whiskey bottle and a glass. If she’s up there, he’ll just… sit somewhere else? He hasn’t worked out exactly what he’ll do yet, but whatever, he can probably find a few square feet without too many discarded cigarette butts where he can sit. And that’s what he does. She half sits and eyes him narrowly when he opens the door, but she’s mollified when he silently takes a seat against the parapet toward the front of the building. They don’t talk. He spends a few hours out there, staring at the sky and refilling his glass a few times. Resigned to the fact that he’ll have to be in the office again in just a few hours, he hauls his half-drunk self to his feet, content to pass the bench by as he leaves. So he’s surprised to hear her speak, so softly that he thinks he might be imagining it.

“Good night,” she says, such an ordinary thing to say. 

He freezes, unsure of how to reply, or whether he should even say anything at all, because what if the love of his life didn’t just randomly wish him a good night after two hostile meetings and one indifferent one. He settles for an expressive, “Uhhh… yeah…” before ducking into the stairway and leaving as quickly as possible. He thinks he hears her voice calling him a wanker again, only this time it almost sounds soft, almost fond. He doesn’t go back to check.

On Thursday, because he’s a lovesick fool, Ben goes back to the roof with the whiskey and a glass. She’s not there and he broods for days. 

But on Saturday, after again barely living through drinks with Hux and Phasma, he takes his liquor and glass to the roof again and his heart almost explodes to see her there once more, staring at the sky in the same jeans and sneakers and ratty hoodie. He ducks his head and offers what he hopes is a smile but is probably more accurately a terrified grimace and heads for the spot he was sitting last week. But as he passes the bench he hears a voice. _Her_ voice, and she’s saying “Hey, do you want to sit? I can scoot over.”

Deciding that it’s probably more dignified to say as little as possible, he merely inclines his head while he waits for her to sit up and make room for him on the not-terribly large bench. She moves all the way to the left and tips her head back to the sky again, her right elbow thrown over the back of the bench. He keeps himself from pressing his face to the long line of her throat and settles himself at the other end of the bench, setting his glass and bottle between them. Belatedly, he realizes he could offer her a drink.

“Would you like one,” he asks tentatively. “I probably owe you from, uh, the other times.” Great job mentioning all those times you completely rage-hulked at her without provocation of any kind. Very smooth, he thinks.

But to his delight, she laughs, a brief but sweet sound, and smiles at him a little shyly. “But you’ve only brought one glass,” she says.

“Oh, that’s ok…” he pauses awkwardly, and then blurts, “I can just drink out of the bottle.” Smooth, Solo. Definitely not the kind of thing angry drunks say.

She snorts as if amused, and clearly she is the galaxy’s most perfect woman because she does not immediately recoil in horror, but says on a chuckle, “that’s hardly more hygienic.”

“Right…” he hesitates, hating everything about himself, loving everything about the way she says the word ‘hygienic.’ 

But before he can resign himself to an entire life alone, without her, she smiles again and says, “But the alcohol will probably kill anything, right? We could share, if that’s ok…” she sounds shy.

“Of course,” he breathes, and pours a generous double into the glass, offering it to her. Their fingers brush as she takes it, and his heart stops.

“I’m Rey,” she says, then dips her nose into the glass, inhaling the whiskey fumes. She smiles.

“Ben,” he chokes out.

She takes a sip, “mmm, you buy the good stuff, Ben. Corellian?” Her eyes flick over to meet his.

“Y-yeah,” he stammers, taking back the glass that she’s offering. He gulps entirely too much whiskey, especially for “the good stuff,” but he needs it. “I really am sorry about before,” he forces out. “I… I’m having tough time at work and I shouldn’t have taken it out on you.”

She nods magnanimously, taking the glass back.

“I’m trying to quit,” he baldly confesses, for reasons unknown to him. “It’s stressful and everyone I work with is the worst asshole and somehow the people we work for are _even worse_ assholes. But my boss knows where all the bodies are buried, and he will do anything to keep me under his control.”

“Sounds awful,” she sympathizes. “What do you do?”

“Consulting and lobbying for the energy industry,” he admits, ashamed. “I’m a lawyer.”

She takes the glass back with a thoughtful hum. “But you want to get out of it?” She asks, like she’s trying to convince herself of something.

“More than anything,” he breathes. 

She passes the glass back and he refills it, and they drink again, in mostly comfortable silence. 

After a while, Ben remembers what manners are and asks, “so what do you do for work, Rey?”

“I’m kind of in transition, too, but mostly I’m an electrical engineer. I’ve done a lot of work on smart power grids.”

“Is there much work in smart power grids in Coruscant?”

“Sort of? I’m from Jakku, and there’s a lot of wind and solar out there that needs to get to where people actually _live,_ i.e. not Jakku. And through a very strange series of coincidences, I ended up moving to a new company with a somewhat different focus. It’s kind of complicated.”

“I’m beginning to think we’re on opposite sides of this war,” he jokes, somewhat clumsily, but she smiles anyway.

“I thought you were trying to quit?” She teases back. “You know, if your boss thinks he knows so much about your weaknesses, I bet you know more about his than you think.” She’s holding the glass out to him meaningfully.

“You know, you might be right…” he muses, draining the glass. When his eyes are burning and gritty, he stands and wishes her a good night. 

She looks at him, fiercely, intently, and promises, “You have the strength to do what you have to, and you are _not_ alone.”

All he can manage is a strained, “neither are you,” before he drags himself to bed for a few hours sleep before he begins plotting.

Time passes, and Ben becomes well acquainted with the chief prosecutor for Coruscant, who’s very interested in the documents that Ben provides her. For a while, his entire life is consumed by playing it cool at work and paranoia. Eventually, Snoke and Palpatine are fitted for bespoke binders and remanded to await trial. Longing has niggled at Ben’s heart these many fraught months, but he’s disciplined enough to keep away from Rey while the poodoo makes its way through the compressor.

But one Friday night, with his heart choking the back of his throat, he makes his way to the roof again, whiskey and two glasses clutched in one of his hands. He doesn’t know if she’ll be there, doesn’t even know if she still _lives_ in his building, and when he opens the door to see her there on the bench like no time has passed at all, he stumbles to a halt stunned and confused and so very happy. The sticky door rebounds off the wall with the force of his shove and smacks him in the side of the face, but he’s undeterred, simply muttering “ow,” before approaching her.

She clambers up to sit, not from fear this time, he dares to hope. “Ben?” She asks, pulling her headphones out.

“Hey. Rey.” Somehow he manages to make those two words into two separate sentences, all stilted and awkward.

“Something tells me you managed to quit your job.” She’s smiling at him now.

“How did you know?” He asks.

“I follow the news, and can put two and two together. Basic maths are kind of on the engineering exams.” She has _dimples_.

“Yeah, I actually start a new job on Monday,” he breathes, and sits down, placing the whiskey and glassware between them.

“I get my own glass, now?” She turns toward him, not even hiding how fully she is checking him out, gaze flitting from his sincere, dark eyes to his shoulders straining his shirt to his big bear paws and down his long legs. He gains confidence.

“I suppose, if that’s what you want,” he tries to tease.

“I think our previous arrangement will suit,” she allows, and he pours a single glass with a double measure of whiskey, just like last time. He offers it to her, but she demurs, “after you, you have some celebrating to do, I think.”

He nods and takes a sip, savoring his first drink as a free man.

“So what have you been up to? Still transitioning from engineering smart power grids?” He asks.

“Something like that,” she grins into the glass.

He gives her his best Solo smirk and asks, “So do you come here often? To the roof, I mean,” realizing the incredibly clumsy double entendre he’s just committed and groans, dropping his face into his hand. To his utter amazement, he feels her hand on his cheek; she tips his face back up to meet her eyes.

“Don’t worry about it; I’ve been trying to think of a way to ask you ‘your place, or mine?’ without being totally cliché, but I’m just going to go with it.”

Robbed of the ability to speak, Ben lunges toward Rey and crushes his lips to hers. She responds with equal enthusiasm, gasping into the kiss and anchoring her hands in his hair. With one swift movement, he hauls her into his lap, running his hands up her thighs, along her sides, his thumbs brushing her nipples on the way as he brings his scorching palms up to cup her face. She jerks her hips suddenly as he brushes her nipples and he groans. A single, unfinished kiss and he’s already hard. At some point, minutes or months in the future, he breaks the kiss, only drawing back far enough to mutter “my place? I want to fuck you in my bed, and on my couch, and in my shower, and in my kitchen. I want to ruin my whole place with you so that I’ll never have an excuse not to think about you.” He pauses. “Sorry, that was a lot.”

“Don’t.” She scolds. “I”m into it. Let’s go ruin your whole apartment. We’ll do mine next time.” She kisses along his jaw, drawing his earlobe into her teeth and biting gently while she grinds down onto his cock. “Oh my godddd you already feel so good,” she moans, rocking her hips.

“ _Fuck,_ Ben grits out before gripping her around the shoulders and standing, fluidly sweeping his left arm under her knees to carry her bridal-style. 

_“Ben!”_ She shrieks, her face alight with joy, but he’s already hustling for the door and clumsily yanking it open before bolting down the stairs to his door. He fleetingly thanks his earlier self for not bothering to lock his apartment door as he rips it open, kicking it shut again just as quickly and flat-out sprinting for his bedroom. 

Rey, for her part, is no passive recipient in all this, She’s already got his shirt untucked and open and is sucking a line of bruises into his throat, one greedy hand reaching inside to wrap around his back and the other shamelessly feeling him up. 

For all his fervor, Ben sets her down gently on the bed, quickly shrugging out of his shirt before reaching under her hoodie, desperate to get his hands on her skin. She’s wrapping her calves around his thighs, yanking him closer to get at his pants button when his fingers find the lower curve of her breasts, bare and soft under her sweatshirt. He moans like a dying man, ending in a strangled approximation of her name. 

“Rey,” he repeats, sweeping his hands up further to guide her hoodie over her head. “Can I please, _please,_ fuck you? I need to fuck you, I need…” he’s babbling now, but he can’t care because she’s got his pants open and is shoving them and his underwear down angrily and growling, “Ben, I will do _violence_ if you’re not inside me in the next minute. I’ve got an IUD and I’m clean.” 

”Fuck, Rey, I’m clean too.” And somehow he finds it in him to step back a bit so he can kick his pants and shoes off and get his fingers under the waistband of her leggings. He glances up at her, a question in his eyes, and she’s nodding furiously as she scoots her way up the bed to make room for him and help peel her leggings down at the same time. He throws them away and lunges after her, unable to stop himself from putting his mouth on her right breast as he climbs over her. Her legs fall open to cradle his hips and he’s never felt anything so right. He takes a few sliding thrusts through her folds, luxuriating in the feel of her plush flesh and coating himself in her slick fluids. He lines himself up and pauses for a second, dropping his forehead to hers, panting. 

“You’re sure, Rey? I think I have a condom somewhere…” She’s furiously trying to grind against him, but he’s got his weight on her and she can only move so much. 

“Yes, Ben, I’m sure,” she pants. “I want to feel you. I’ve wanted to feel you for so long…” she trails off on a moan as he slides in, long and thick and hot. They both still for a moment before Ben starts to move, Rey picking up on his rhythm and meeting it instinctively. 

Where Rey seems to have been robbed of the power of speech, it’s like every filthy and reverent thing Ben has ever thought has chosen this moment to pour out of his mouth. 

“ _Ohhh Fuck,_ sweetheart. You feel so good. So wet for me, _just_ for me. And so _tight,_ you’re driving me crazy, ohhh fuuuuck…” he wails as she clenches around him, squeezing him tighter with her thighs. Ben knows that he has about thirty more seconds of this in him before he’s done for, so he reaches down between them and thumbs her clit. “Please, sweetheart, please come for me. I can’t… I’m gonna… so close…” 

He’s just railing her now, and artlessly mashing her clit because he is too close for any finesse and because she is beautiful and merciful and so, so perfect she clamps down on him hard and wails as she shatters, dragging him with her as he shouts her name. 

He comes to at some point in the future; it could be seconds or minutes or hours later, he has no idea. He realizes that he’s probably crushing her, and mutters, “oh shit, sorry,” and starts to push up on his arms and she actually snarls and clutches him with her arms and legs like a monkey refusing to be removed from its tree. 

“No, not yet,” Rey snaps, or at least tries to, but it comes out thick and slow. To emphasize her point, she cranes her neck up a bit to rest her teeth gently but insistently on the meat of his shoulder. He chuckles a bit but complies, nuzzling into her sweaty hairline and mouthing gently at her temple. After a while, her limbs loosen and she stretches a bit, groaning. He takes this as his cue to roll to the side but he doesn’t take his eyes off her. At this point he’s not sure if he could. 

“I have needed that for a _long_ time,” she purrs, satisfied. 

Ben wants to say something smooth and sexy but he can see her tits again and so he blurts “I still have my socks on.” Rey laughs like it’s a perfectly adorable thing to say and he doesn’t even feel like a goon, lying here next to her in his bed, their sweat and come smeared all over each other. He tries again. “Do you want to get in the shower? I can order us a pizza.” 

_“Yes,” she groans, like this is the best idea she’s ever heard. It’s certainly the best idea he’s ever had._

__

__

After Rey showers, they eat the pizza and then fuck again on his couch, slower this time, with her straddling his lap and her fingers in his hair, one of his hands clutching her ass while the other is back on her clit, his mouth sucking matching marks into her throat. They repeat this pattern for most of the weekend, ruining the kitchen counter and the shower and the bed again, several times over. At some point Ben orders more pizza. By Sunday afternoon, Rey’s resting on his chest while they both catch their breath, sweaty after he eats her out on the edge of the bed until she barks at him to “get up here and lie down,” and she rides him until they’re both spent. 

“What time is it,” she rasps without lifting her head. 

Ben glances at his alarm clock, “Two-fifteen,” he croaks. 

“Uugh, I need to do some laundry before work tomorrow.” 

“Me too,” he reluctantly agrees, thinking of how they woke in the middle of the night last night and he fucked her from behind before they both passed out again, waking up in a sticky pool that he couldn’t _really_ regret, but nevertheless should clean up soon. 

They dress and he walks her to her apartment on the floor below his and the other side of the hall. They stand at the door and neck like teenagers for, like, fifteen minutes, but he’s only a little embarrassed when their incredibly ancient and lewd neighbor Maz steps out of the elevator and grins at them. 

“Good afternoon, Benjamin; Miss Sanders.” 

Ben straightens up and clears his throat, the barest tinge of pink on his cheeks. “Hey Maz.” He greets her. 

Apparently too old for social pleasantries, Maz leers back, “your mother would like this one,” before tugging her granny cart full of groceries past them and to her own apartment. 

Ben is incredibly relieved when instead of balking, Rey grabs his shirt front to drag his lips against hers and whisper “I’d like that,” before kissing him senseless again. Reluctantly, eventually, they manage to part ways, with numbers exchanged and promises to debrief after his first day at his new job tomorrow. 

The next morning, he’s up early and in a surprisingly good mood, considering that he’s been dreading his return to Resistance Corp and with it, the Skywalker-Organa-Solo fold. Apparently getting his brains fucked out by the girl of his dreams for 36 hours straight has a positive effect on his mood. Who knew? He arrives at Resistance’s office for the completely sane hour of 8:30 and his mother is waiting to greet him and give him the tour. 

“Benny! It’s so good to have you here. Let’s get you settled in.” She tentatively holds out her arms for a hug and he finds himself leaning down to return it with surprising enthusiasm. 

Leia shows him his desk and the break room, the copiers and the supply closet, and introduces him to the HR and IT people, promising he’ll be back later to finish up with them. By now, it’s coming up on 9:00, and she says, “most of our people should be in by now, why don’t we get you introduced.” He meets Finn, who he thinks he recognizes from First Order a few years back, and Poe, who he hasn’t seen since they were both shitty pre-teens, but seems a decent enough guy now. Meeting Rose is a little awkward because she’s about the same height as his mother and that makes him feel like a tree, but she seems really nice. 

“And this,” his mother says with a touch of drama as they round the corner into a secluded cube near the back windows, “is the technical advisor to our green technology lobbying team, who of course you’ll be working closely with, Rey Sanders.” 

Rey, who had been absorbed in whatever she was reading, looks up and when her eyes meet his she gasps ever so slightly. The morning sun is falling on her face, pulling out her freckles and the glints of gold and green in her irises. She is so lovely, and so unexpected, that Ben is rooted to the spot and gaping like a fish. 

After a moment, Rey manages to stand and whisper “Ben?” Like she can’t believe he’s actually here in front of her and not some sort of apparition. 

Leia, who has always been supernaturally perceptive, simply looks between the two of them and breaks out in a wry grin. “Oh I’m so glad you finally met a nice Jewish girl, Benny,” then pats him on the arm and walks off. 

Rey comes around her desk, huffing out a laugh and smiling like the sun itself. She holds out her hands and Ben takes them, still unable to form words, but that’s ok, because Rey is saying “I guess Maz was right; your mom does love me. She’s been trying to set me up with you for like a year.” 

“Oh yeah?” He croaks, unsure of how to respond. Does he apologize for repeatedly hanging up on his mother whenever she brought up this mysterious girl from her office who would be “just perfect for you, Benny, believe me,” or what? 

But Rey just draws him close and whispers, “but I never would have let her. See, there’s this guy in my building that I’m, like, _super_ into…” 

“Is that so?” He smirks, cupping her cheek and gazing adoringly into her eyes. 

“It is,” she murmurs, and pulls him down for a kiss by the back of the neck. Distantly, he hears Poe shout, “Damn, Solo! Already? Get a room!” But he doesn’t care, because suddenly he knows that even if he turns around and is immediately faced with the disapproving scowl of his uncle Luke, he has turned a corner and from now on, his life is going to be _good._

**Author's Note:**

> If you liked this, I have two other complete works, both in the canonverse. "Aren't you a little tall for an Ewok," which is what happens when a certain grouchy Supreme Leader finds out he's an adopted Ewok, and "I lived a lifetime in the space of a dream," which is a quick dream-like interlude. Enjoy!


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